Is Fast Times at Ridgemont High a pro-abortion movie?

posted at 8:01 pm on June 19, 2014 by Noah Rothman

One of the pet topics on MSNBC’s The Cycle recently has been the film Obvious Child. The new movie centers on the story of one woman who accidentally conceives after a one-night stand and decides to have an abortion. “It’s sweet, it’s funny, and it’s a rare look at one woman’s story of having an abortion and, spoiler alert, her life does not end broken and miserable,” MSNBC host Krystal Ball crowed on Thursday.

On Thursday, MSNBC hosts interviewed some of the talent behind the movie which, to be honest, sounds like the perfect subject of a film: the exploration of a subject rarely examined objectively and from a relatively unique angle. However, it seems as though the MSNBC hosts are more enamored with what the filmmaker said is the message of the film: the subject’s decision to have a “positive, safe, shame-free abortion.”

Beats “safe, legal, and rare,” no?

Now, just to get this out of the way: I do support the protections provided by Roe. However, what the filmmakers seem to be trying to achieve, and what the MSNBC hosts are attempting to promote, is to make the decision to get an abortion one that circumvents the conscience. That seems to not only be an unattainable goal, but an undesirable one as well.

When asked why their film was so unique in Hollywood in the sense that there are relatively few movies which portray abortion in a positive light, star Jenny Slate countered that film was not breaking new ground.

“Fast Times at Rigemont High is a great example of a positive, regrets-free abortion,” Slate said.

Hmm. Now, it’s been a while since I watched Fast Times, but I don’t recall it being particularly pro-abortion. In fact, from pregnancy to post-abandonment revenge, the character Stacy Hamilton endures nothing but trauma.

After being impregnated by a callous and unscrupulous Mike Damone in a pool changing room, Stacy confronts him with the fact that she is pregnant. When Damone insists that she must abort the child, a decision she has already come to, Damone agrees to pay for half of the procedure and provide a ride to the clinic. When, however, it comes time for him to make good on his offer, Damone is nowhere to be found.

Stacy proceeds to lie to her brother in order to get a ride to the clinic and undergoes the procedure alone. Even at the last moment, she is wracked with indecision:

After leaving the clinic, she is confronted by her brother who comforts her and pledges to take revenge on Damone.

Slate calls this a “sweet, tender moment.” I suppose the tale of sibling love related in that moment is “sweet,” but the circumstances which bring them together are anything but. If this is as close as it gets to a positive portrayal of abortion in Hollywood, I suppose the bar for Obvious Child’s success is set rather low.

There is distinction between “shame-free” and “consequence-free,” and abortion will never be the latter. Most, like the character of Stacy Hamilton, agonize over up up until the last minute. It seems to me that the MSNBC hosts and the filmmakers in this case are reaching to glamorize one of the few acts which is so emotionally draining and morally challenging that even Hollywood has been unable to destigmatize it.

Good luck, team Obvious Child. It seems like it’s going to be an uphill battle.

An earlier version of this post referred to Slate as the film’s “writer and director.”

I’d say the take on it is a muddle. Stacey has some emotional upset about it, but later seems to have few qualms about it. FTARH might be more of a cautionary tale to teens about getting used through their sexuality. Stacey sleeps with two partners in the film (one Damone, the other a somewhat older young adult), neither of whom care about her and both of whom discard her as soon as the sex is over — Damone practically runs out of the room. Meanwhile, her friend (played by Phoebe Cates) is clearly delusional about her own maturity level and eggs Stacey on to build up her own self-esteem as a supposedly experienced woman.

It’s a little more complex in the book, IIRC, but not too much different.

Yep, Dan Quayle’s an idiot because he thinks Murphy Brown is real or something. You apparently don’t need a Krystal Ball to tell you why “her life does not end broken and miserable,” it’s because the WRITER wrote it that way.

I see no reason why a woman should feel guilt and pain over an abortion. As a gardener, I weed all the time. I doubt that will ever suffer post-weeding syndrome out of guilt for all the plants I have killed.

Now, just to get this out of the way: I do support the protections provided by Roe. However, what the filmmakers seem to be trying to achieve, and what the MSNBC hosts are attempting to promote, is to make the decision to get an abortion one that circumvents the conscience. That seems to not only be an unattainable goal, but an undesirable one as well.

Hm.

HotGas can hire whomever they wish, and I enjoy most of the posts. Nevertheless, it is pretty clear that they are much closer to the “center” than the “right” on many issues. Could having an atheist (whose writing I enjoy, actually) and a pro-abortion writer who wrote essentially a “hit piece” after Brat’s win

History
Hot Air was launched on April 24, 2006, with Michelle Malkin as founder/CEO. Since then, the site has become one of the largest right-of-center blogs on the Internet. Here’s the very first post that appeared at Hot Air–posted at 4:15am after bleary-eyed preparations and an intense team effort to launch the site. Here were Michelle’s reflections on the site’s six-month anniversary.

In 2010, HotAir was acquired and became part of the Townhall/HotAir network alongside Townhall.com and Townhall Magazine in a network of conservative websites with over four million monthly readers.

Just waiting for the day when pro-aborts get to the point where they can define how searing of the human conscience where callously taking another human being’s life is concerned contributes to the development of moral character in the woman’s life.

All they’ve got is this sop they keep they offering as justification for murder.

I see no reason why a woman should feel guilt and pain over an abortion. As a gardener, I weed all the time. I doubt that will ever suffer post-weeding syndrome out of guilt for all the plants I have killed.

I see no reason why a woman should feel guilt and pain over an abortion. As a gardener, I weed all the time. I doubt that will ever suffer post-weeding syndrome out of guilt for all the plants I have killed.

thuja on June 19, 2014 at 8:18 PM

Let me know the next time one of those “weeds” kicks you inside the ribcage, or recoils in pain during a procedure, OK?

I see no reason why a woman should feel guilt and pain over an abortion. As a gardener, I weed all the time. I doubt that will ever suffer post-weeding syndrome out of guilt for all the plants I have killed.

I see no reason why a woman should feel guilt and pain over an abortion. As a gardener, I weed all the time. I doubt that will ever suffer post-weeding syndrome out of guilt for all the plants I have killed.
thuja on June 19, 2014 at 8:18 PM

I see no reason why a woman should feel guilt and pain over an abortion. As a gardener, I weed all the time. I doubt that will ever suffer post-weeding syndrome out of guilt for all the plants I have killed.

thuja on June 19, 2014 at 8:18 PM

thuja:

Interesting, I’m not sure if weeds/pot, have brains/emotions, or feelings,
or the devine Spark of God!!!!!

Many people such as myself–not so mainstream of a conservative–think killing human fetuses not wanted by their mother is morally fine. I want to praise people who help the mother do the killing. I certainly don’t want them murdered or hindered in any way.

Many people such as myself–not so mainstream of a conservative–think killing human fetuses not wanted by their mother is morally fine. I want to praise people who help the mother do the killing. I certainly don’t want them murdered or hindered in any way.

Yes-it is.
I that out a few years back. I was sicked by the casual attitude toward infanticide.
I was maybe 11 or 12 when FTARH hit the theaters-and I USED TO like the film.
I’ll still listen to the soudtrack-but I refuse to ever watch the film again

It’s a little more complex in the book, IIRC, but not too much different.

Ed Morrissey on June 19, 2014 at 8:09 PM

If you have read the book, then you know that Ridgemont High, is actually Clairemont High School, in San Diego California. Cameron Crowe went undercover to write the book, but he was a lousy investigator and a highly biased writer.

What that means is that Crowe didn’t even bother to explain what was happening a Clairemont High/Ridgemont High or why the student’s there acted the way they did.

Back in 1982, San Diego was still a huge military town, if your parent’s weren’t in the military, odds are they worked for a defense Contractor.

The 60’s and 70’s were an amazingly brutal time for the resident’s of San Diego California. The vast majority of military personal who fought, and died in the Vietnam War, were Resident’s of San Diego. They may have been born in the other 49 States, but the Military Stationed them here. This is where they lived when they were not doing their Tour of Duty.

When they came home in body bags, this is where they came first, before being sent back to their parent’s and family. If they were married and had children, this is where their wives/husbands and kids lived while they were away.

Back in the 70’s and 80’s San Diego was wracked with riot’s that centered around the military personals kid’s. Drug and alcohol abuse by teenagers was 10 times the epidemic that they were in any other part of the country. In large part, because nobody knew whose father or mother was coming home next in a body bag.

By 1982, the pressure cooker environment that the Vietnam War had produced in San Diego had already exploded (that happened in 1975 when the war ended) but the effects of that explosion the down sizing of both the military and the Defense Contractors, people losing good paying jobs that they had had for decades played hell with those who were pre-teens in 1975, but high school students by 1981. Oh, and you should probably also note that while Crowe wrote the book in 1981, he did the research for it back in 1978.

Crowe made no attempt to explain how the Vietnam War had impacted the kid’s at Clairemont High/Ridgemont High. He created a mythical fantasy world where the kid’s at Clairemont High/Ridgemont High’s behavior came entirely out of a vacuum and was portrayed as absolutely normal and typical behavior for American High
School Student’s. The truth is, it wasn’t, it was the consequence of living in an amazingly high stress environment that they could not really understand.

I wouldn’t call Fast Times at Ridgemont High pro-abortion. It probably leans in that direction, but it doesn’t exactly make her situation out to be no big deal or without emotional consequences.

If anything, another R-rated teen comedy from 1982, The Last American Virgin, was arguably more pro-abortion. Anyone who remembers that movie’s sucker punch of an ending(at least it is if you’re a dude) will recall that Karen sure didn’t seem too grief-stricken over her abortion by the time she arrives at that party.

HotGas can hire whomever they wish, and I enjoy most of the posts. Nevertheless, it is pretty clear that they are much closer to the “center” than the “right” on many issues. Could having an atheist (whose writing I enjoy, actually) and a pro-abortion writer who wrote essentially a “hit piece” after Brat’s win…have something to do with that?

cs89 on June 19, 2014 at 8:22 PM

Truthfully reporting that a candidate for Congress agreed to a television interview in which he was completely unprepared to discuss even the most basic current issues, including the minimum wage for crying out loud, is a “hit piece”?

I’ve seen FTARH and I would never have guessed there was that much history behind it. Nice info!!!

lineholder on June 19, 2014 at 8:49 PM

I was there. I mean, literally there while Crowe was doing his research. My folks were Navy, we moved to San Diego in 1970. Hell, I still live here. FTARH is not a pro abortion movie, it was one of the first of the “Coming of Age” movies. Crowe showed the whole world how we were living and acting in San Diego in the late 1970’s. But he didn’t bother to tell anyone why we were living and acting and behaving that way. The truth is, that we were suffering from something very closely related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

If anything, another R-rated teen comedy from 1982, The Last American Virgin, was arguably more pro-abortion. Anyone who remembers that movie’s sucker punch of an ending(at least it is if you’re a dude) will recall that Karen sure didn’t seem too grief-stricken over her abortion by the time she arrives at that party.
Doughboy on June 19, 2014 at 8:44 PM

To be fair, the abortion part was a Hitchcockian-type MacGuffin, a plot device to move the plot to it’s sad end. It could have just as well had been a new car or a vacation for her that he paid for instead. But an abortion is more personal in the movie’s context.

truthfully reporting that a candidate for Congress agreed to a television interview in which he was completely unprepared to discuss even the most basic current issues, including the minimum wage for crying out loud, is a “hit piece”? cam2 on June 19, 2014 at 8:53 PM

What next, the authors here proclaim their support of gun control, amnesty, and a 90% tax on everyone?
Or did I already miss that.
Bishop on June 19, 2014 at 8:52 PM

I believe several writers here have already admitted to supporting illegal alien amnesty.

Also, see here: VIDEO – http://youtu.be/91x7GBml9ik look after the 6:00 mark. Noah Rothman tries to argue that supporting amnesty is something a principled conservative would do.

Yes, this site has changed a lot since Malkin was running things. She would, through this site, have a lot of influence on the debate, and I would cheer her on. She fought, and continues to fight, on the frontlines. Today the official blog feels less bold, less “in the fight.”

Don’t get me wrong, I think Noah and all the others are immensely talented writers, and I don’t fault them for expressing their opinions. But I do prefer the Malkin-style approach.

It would make a good story, especially if you could find a few people who were living in the area at the same time, get interviews, and follow the course of their lives…societal impact of those events, so to speak.

If I’m treading where angels would fear to go….it’s not intentional, you know.

Now, just to get this out of the way: I do support the protections provided by Roe.

We’re probably going to hit the Little Green Footballs threshold soon where there’s a bunch of big blog posts about how the Tea Party has become to extreme, the Republican Party has drifted too far, True Conservatives will all vote for Hillary Clinton and we’ll all be summarily banned and forgotten.

Well just damn! I didn’t need to know all that, especially since my buddies and I tried to recreate the smoke-rolling-out-the-van-door scene in front of a popular arcade.

I just want to remember the flick as Judd Nelson telling a customer he’s going to kick 100% of his ass, and that other guy scalping Cheap Trick and Earth, Wind, and Fire tickets.

Cheap Trick. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

Bishop on June 19, 2014 at 8:57 PM

ROTFLMAO… You had to have access to the insane volume of cheap Mexican Weed we had back then to pull that off. An ounce for between $5.00 and $10.00. Everybody smoking their own joint as fat as a cigar, and 8 to 10 people in the vehicle.

True Story; Back in 1977 I bought my first car, a 1968 MG 1100 Sedan. In 1980 me and 4 of my friends were parked in by folks driveway smoking in my car. The smoke was so thick and dark in the car, that one of the neighbor’s though that the car was on fire and called the Fire Department. We were so stoned that we didn’t even notice the Fire Truck or the Cops pull up (yea, with sirens and flashing lights and the whole 9 yards), until they opened the door to put what they thought was a fire out.

The moral of this story is… It’s a really bad idea to roll 5 joint’s out of Cheech and Chong’s Big Bambu Rolling papers and then smoke them all at the same time in a car.

Come on. Every movie that isn’t explicitly pro-life is implicitly pro-abortion. The producers, directors and actors all occupy a space on the political spectrum to the left of at least 75% of Americans, and many of them are pretty exclusive Kook-Left territory.

It would make a good story, especially if you could find a few people who were living in the area at the same time, get interviews, and follow the course of their lives…societal impact of those events, so to speak.

If I’m treading where angels would fear to go….it’s not intentional, you know.

lineholder on June 19, 2014 at 9:07 PM

Wow, that’s a task I doubt that I would be up to. Way to much skin in the game as the old story goes. Yea, that just might actually be a place Angels would fear to tread.

From time to time something comes up, like this reference to FTARH, and I find myself writing little blurbs about what it was like here in the 1970’s and 1980’s. It honestly takes me by surprise the depth of emotion that I still carry over event’s that are now between 30 and 40 years in the past.

I really do not know if I have what it takes to write dispassionately about what it was like or how it affected people. I’m not sure I could do it without being both bitter and insulting to those people who weren’t here and do not understand what it was like.

Seriously, I don’t blame you in the least for not wanting to dwell on it. Some life experiences are just that painful to look at, even though a retrospective lens. Cathartic, yes, but hurt like the dickens to do it.